


Storm Warning

by Accidentallytechohazardous



Category: Bleach
Genre: Character Development, Choking, M/M, Post-Canon, Strangulation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-09 16:13:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19890670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Accidentallytechohazardous/pseuds/Accidentallytechohazardous
Summary: After I read the description of Shuuhei’s bankai, I remembered that Renji had trained with Shuuhei way way before cfyow and I wondered what that training was like.So. Renji tries to help Shuuhei. It gets a little out of hand, and it turns out Shuuhei is not the only one who needs to figure out his place in Soul Society’s New World Order.





	Storm Warning

Before they trained, Renji made them stop at a tea house that he liked for lunch. 

“I don’t want tea.” Shuuhei sounded almost like a petulant child, especially with the surly way he folded his arms over his chest. Kazeshini was on his hip, polished in its royal blue sheath. Shuuhei didn’t like to carry his sword out in public like this, and the rest of the tea house was giving the shinigami a wide berth. 

“How am I supposed to get stronger on an empty stomach?” Renji argued. “Get something to eat and settle down. Maybe if we’re lucky, the rain will pass us before we actually get outside.” 

In fact, it was barely the afternoon and the sky was already looking dark. The clouds were puffy and swollen with rain. There was a thickness in the air, a wet heat that was almost oppressive. 

Shuuhei looked out the window, which was easy because as he approached everyone else eating leaned away. Renji could see sweat form droplets on the back of his neck from the humidity. “It won’t pass. It’s going to be a storm.” 

The food was spread out over the table, smelling sweetly of fresh-cooked rice, roasted chicken, vegetables and seasoned sauces. Shuuhei and Renji both watched the first sheet of rain pound the street outside, followed by a crack of thunder. 

The other people– the customers and the servers and the cooking staff in white robes and white bandannas, also looked out at the gray rain. It was a lunch rush after all, weather or no weather. The mood was tense, worried, but also excited by the violence of the wind and the water and the noise. 

It looked to Renji almost like how people came out on a clear night to watch the summer fireworks. Like everyone had gathered to watch the disaster. 

Shuuhei was hard to fight with, and that was just the truth. 

He made everything a hundred times more difficult for himself, which Renji should have been able to appreciate. Now, however, he could understand how everyone else got frustrated when Renji chose the path of most resistance. 

Shuuhei was smart. Smart enough to find Renji’s weaknesses in an instant. But also he was skittish, defensive. Zabimaru’s teeth and Kazeshini’s scythes clashes against each other from what seemed like miles away from their wielders, Shuuhei rarely dared to close in on Renji, where he knew the redhead had the advantage. His strong, handsome arms were littered with blue bruises and cuts where Renji had gotten him

It was stupid. Renji knew his own reputation for daring and danger and all, but Shuuhei was his senpai. He knew that Shuuhei was powerful. Maybe his strength still needed to be honed and nurtured, but still it was deadly in a fight and Shuuhei had the experience to prove it. There was no reason for Renji to keep landing blows on him like he was a schoolyard bully picking on someone weaker. 

Against his better judgement, Renji’s infamous temper finally flared.

“Are you trying to make fun of me, or are you just stupid?” 

Again, Shuuhei was very intelligent. The wide-eyed look of innocence didn’t suit him at all. “What are you talking about?” 

Zabimaru clattered against Kazeshini’s steel, sounding like a wild hiss. 

“I mean like, are you being serious right now with this? If you want to fight me, you have to actually land a hit at some point. Make an effort.” 

Kazeshini’s curved blade deflected Zabimaru’s teeth. A flash of sparks jumped from where the metal had connected. 

“I”m not making an effort? Be careful, Renji. You sound more like your captain each day.” 

“I”m serious.” 

Heavy, iron chains scraped against each other in a death rattle. Occasionally, Shuuhei’s scythes would spin wildly and cut down a tree. Renji knew that on some level, Shuuhei was more worried about Renji becoming that tree than he was about winning. Rude of him, really. 

“I like you, senpai. But I’m not here to hang out with you. I don’t want to do a light workout and then hit the baths and call it a good day. Lemme tell you what’s going to happen.”

Renji wanted to get in close. So close his teeth could cut Shuuhei’s ear. So close his eyes could trace up and down the three scars of Shuuhei’s face and his eyelashes could brush the black ink on his cheek. His voice was rasp all the way into Shuuhei’s thick, obstinate skull. 

“I’m going to get powerful. So powerful I don’t even recognize myself. So powerful that Captain is going to seem like a garden snake under my heel and Aizen is gonna be a spider that I squash and flush the remains down the shitter.” 

He was being grossly foolhardy, but that didn’t matter at all. At the moment, Renji didn’t care who heard him talk about himself like a god. 

“If you don’t feel the same way, that’s fine. Go back to your paper and your little articles about how unfair the world is. Achieve world peace. Hell, I’ll support you the whole way. But meanwhile I’ll be here, sharpening my claws,” Renji’s smirk was a knife in Shuuhei’s neck, he could see it on his face. “Ready for the moment I make the world my bitch.” 

Some emotion crawled across Shuuhei’s face, starting from his tensed brows and rippling down to his jaw. Was it fear or revulsion? No, rage. 

Finally, something exciting!

“And here I thought that what happened to you during the war made you so much nicer.” 

Renji felt it then. A blow to his head that knocked his brain back against his skull and made him see white. It pushed him right back on his ass, and sitting in the dirt he felt Shuuhei’s reiatsu pushing. 

Not pushing. Grabbing. 

Shuuhei’s energy wrapped around Renji’s neck, squeezing against his throat. Renji dropped Zabimaru and tried to wrap his fingers around the chains collaring him, but there was no pulling the metal links apart. 

A kind of pain overtook Renji that was new and sudden. He was doubly sore, doubly tired. Had he been bruised and cut on his like this arms before? Shuuhei’s wounds blossomed across Renji’s skin like ink on wet paper. 

He saw Shuuhei now, standing over him and with his scythes in hand. Bloodied, shocked and afraid. Wearing the same chain collar that also tightened against Renji’s skin. 

The spell broke then. The chains dissolved into ash and confetti, and Renji felt air enter him almost immediately for Shuuhei squeezed it back out. Those bruised arms took Renji’s body into them, which was more than he deserved, and he felt Shuuhei tremble when he pulled Renji’s face into his shoulder. 

The storm had passed, more or less. 

Four hours later they were in bed together, both bathed and changed into their most comfortable sleeping clothes. Renji’s cheek was resting against Shuuhei’s chest, listening to his heartbeat while Shuuhei’s fingers combed through his long hair. 

They both wore matching black bruises around their throats, which would be fun to try and explain tomorrow. Izuru was going to flip his lid. Shuuhei hadn’t told him yet that he was anywhere close to finishing his bankai. 

Renji’s fingers tenderly touched a bruise on Shuuhei’s rib that he had put there himself earlier. Neither of them were in the mood to fuck, but Renji kind of wished there was an orgasm between them that might have released some of the tension. If Izuru were here he would give both of them some tenderness, but he was still at work.

Shuuhei’s voice was sore and tired. “You have quite a mouth on you when you fight. Did you mean that stuff you said earlier?” 

Renji flushed with mortification. All his boasting seemed really childish and cruel now. 

_And here I thought that what happened to you during the war made you so much nicer._

‘ _I’m sorry i was so mean’_ was what Renji wanted to say, but he thought that might make him sound like a puppy that had been swatted on the nose and was pretending to be apologetic. 

“No, of course not. I was just trying to get under your skin. Push your boundaries a little, you know?”

“Hmm.” Shuuhei’s lips pressed together. His hair fell into his eyes, and onto the pillow like a crown. He was so pretty, and strong, and smart, and lovely, and funny and kind. “I wish people would stop doing that.”

“I’m sorry.” Renji stewed in guilt. Make the world his bitch, indeed. 

Shuuhei’s fingers lucked a lock of red hair behind Renji’s ear, before they went down to the ring of bruises. Renji offered his neck willingly, though he winced against the slight pressure of Shuuhei’s touch. “I’m sorry, too.”

“Not your fault.” Renji said. “You weren’t controlling it.”

“Those,” Shuuhei replied, “Are two different things.” 

* * *

Renji and Shuuhei continued to train together after that, albeit with certain boundaries about what they could or could not do now during those intense sessions. Renji put a hard stop to the verbal abuse, and Shuuhei never used his bankai to hurt Renji again, intentionally or unintentionally. Whether that was a victory, Renji wasn’t really sure.

After the Blood War, Shuuhei started training almost every day with Mashiro and Captain Muguruma, who were made out of tougher stuff than your run-of-the-mill shinigami. Shuuhei didn’t talk about these private training sessions (except sometimes to complain about how obnoxious Mashiro could be or how pig-headed Muguruma was, but you didn’t hear that from Renji.)

But it was hard to ignore when the visored leaders of the Ninth Division would walk around with dark circles under their eyes and an exhausted grayness to their face, courtesy of Shuuhei’s powers forcing their healing factor far beyond what they were meant to go through. Or the black circle bruises around their necks. 

“You really think he is alright?” Izuru asked one evening. 

“Physically? He’ll be fine.” Renji was chopping up vegetables by the sink. “I don’t know if he’s happy, though.”

Izuru was patiently waiting by the table for his dinner, which was late enough that even the laid-back shinigami was getting impatient enough to hover around the kitchen. With Shuuhei balancing training with his captain and co-lieutenant on top of all his other activities, Renji was trying to make things easier at home by taking over the cooking. 

He was not, how you say, good at it. 

The blond leaned against his elbows. He was in a suspiciously good spell of health lately. Suspicious enough to make Renji nervous, which made him feel paranoid on top of it all. 

Izuru’s physical state had more or less stabilized since his re-animation from death, which was a bananas sentiment that Renji never thought he would be accepting as part of reality but here he is. The Third’s lieutenant still had his bad spells every now and then, and Renji worried about how he’d help Izuru cope if he didn’t have Shuuhei on hand to help. 

That was a different issue, though. One crisis at a time. 

“You think he needs a break.” Izuru said. It wasn’t a question. 

Renji snorted. “If you want to try and convince him to take a vacation, I’m all in favor. Shuuhei doesn’t know when to quit when it’s good for him.” 

“Sound like someone you know?” Izuru muttered smugly, and Renji could feel his blue eyes on his back. “Perhaps there are still ways we can help, though. At least until Shuuhei is ready to relax.” 

“You’re probably right, but I’m not sure how we could do that in a way that matters. My handwriting is abominable, I don’t think Shuuhei wants me to help with his paperwork. I guess we could try more joint patrols.” Renji’s knife made chunky slices of the tomatoes. Was he using the right one? How Shuuhei kept track of these utensils, Renji would never know. 

Izuru hummed in agreement. “No, you’re right about that. What if you took a position on the Seireitei Communication?” 

“You think so? I guess I’m due for another ‘Let’s Do Shikai’…”

“I was thinking, like, a more involved position. Like an editor?” 

Renji learned then a number one rule of cooking, which is to never let your attention wander off when handling a sharp object near your poor fingers. In a split second, blood smeared the edge of the knife and dribbled onto the cutting board. “Goddammit!” 

He slammed the knife against the kitchen counter in anger, sticking the open cut to his lips and tasting raw copper. It was just a little cut, but it stung fiercely. Izuru was at Renji’s side in an instant. “Let me see!” 

For a kidou-adept like Izuru, a little healing was no problem. Once he had blotted up the blood, the cut shrank down to a little white knick on Renji’s thumb. 

“Why would I be the editor?” Renji asked while Izuru wet a rag and cleaned up the blood on the counters. “I’m not that good at writing. You’d be a much better fit.”

Izuru just shrugged, giving Renji an earnest look like he didn’t understand at all what the fuss was. 

“Maybe it’s outside of your wheelhouse, but that’s all the more reason to try. You have had a rather unconventional career for a lieutenant, but you’re surprisingly tight-lipped about your opinions on any of it. I’m sure that there are many people who are interested in what you think and would gladly read about it.” 

Renji licked the inside of his teeth, chewing on his doubt. He didn’t know if he had ever been described as ‘tight-lipped’ before, but perhaps he had gotten used to keeping his thoughts to himself. Even so, that didn’t mean Renji had any talent as an editor or an author.

Izuru could read the doubt on his face. “Well, think about it. Even if you don’t take a position on the paper, you might feel better if you took up writing as a hobby.”

“What do you mean by that?”

Izuru gave him a dry look that was utterly indecipherable. “Shuuhei isn’t the only one who has been looking frustrated lately.”

Renji didn’t know what he meant.

* * *

Peace doesn’t stay on Soul Society for long. And despite the war ending in a resounding victory (?) for the shinigami, there are more enemies than ever.

The struggle was still the same as ever, anyways. Central 46 fucked around in their private halls. The Rukongai limped along the best it can. Shinigami still tried to save as many human souls as they can fit in their arms before death snaps them up. 

There’s a lot more to it than that, but the total break-down is for a different time. 

When the next war came, it was fast and hard and cold like lightning streaking across the sky. A sudden storm. A cut across the chin. 

Renji volunteered himself to the front lines, as per usual. He overestimated himself, as per fucking usual. It was his signature move, after all. Get beat to hell so someone else can get all the glory. 

Renji’s vision was getting dim. In fact, it was barely the afternoon and the sky was already looking dark. The clouds were puffy and swollen with rain. There was a thickness in the air, a wet heat that was almost oppressive. 

The rain came down on top of him, soaking Renji’s clothes, skin and hair in a mixture of blood and water. 

Renji took stock of the wet, soft ground underneath him. His hands touched grass when he pushed himself to sit up, though his head was dizzy and his body was yearning for sleep. The rain made him feel small and heavy, like at any minute the drops would knock him back down. 

Where was Zabimaru? Where was his squad, his friends, everyone? 

Oh, of course. Renji had to be stupid and brave and go on ahead so everyone else could get around. What else could it be? Losing track of his zanpakuto was just the cherry on top. 

Renji saw only one hollow. The vasto lorde that stood no taller than Renji himself, but its scorpion tail was dripping with the same venom that now sprinted through Renji’s blood. 

It was a hideous and mean thing, with human features that did not seem to fit over his arachnid core. Renji wasn’t sure what it would do after it killed him. Would it eat his body or let him rot into the soil? 

Eaten or rotting, eaten or rotting? It was such a small difference, but the implications seemed enormous. 

The hollow’s jaw unhinged, a human mouth with lips peeling back to reveal a pair of pincers. Eaten it was, then. Renji’s breath reflexively stopped and he braced himself for the first touch of those teeth.

It didn’t come. 

Shuuhei’s bankai had a greater sphere of influence than it had at the start. Now, it appeared there was a black storm cloud hanging low over the ground from which the two strands of chains dangled. That was the common anchor which would control the fates of those connected to it. 

Shuuhei had a stern look about him. However, he so often looked stern that for a moment Renji didn’t think to attach the expression to the blood that coated him. It soaked into his clothes, covered his face, matted his hair.

This was not the first of the vasto lorde that Shuuhei had killed today. 

In seconds, it was a loose pile of flesh and blood, smeared artfully across the grass. A fresh coat of dark liquid dripped off of Kazeshini’s curved claws. 

“You’re hurt.” 

If Shuuhei expected Renji to respond, he would be waiting for a good while. Renji stayed sitting on the ground, taking in the beauty of the man who had come back for him. 

It was funny– if you had asked Renji before, he would think that in such a situation he would be angry, or ashamed. Angry he was caught in such a vulnerable position, once again demoted to the back of the pack to be stomped on and forgotten. Ashamed to be seen in his weakness. 

Now, however, it just struck Renji silent with a single thought;

_When was the last time somebody came to rescue me? Who only protected me, and no one else?_

Shuuhei picked Renji up with a shocking ease, muttering and fretting darkly about the Fourth Division relief squads and getting Renji a blood transfusion and other such mundanities. Renji sank into his touch, into his skin, even though Shuuhei stank of gore. 

He was so, so, unbelievably relieved. Like all the fear and the doubt and the rage inside of him had been crushed. They had shattered like glass, and all they left behind was dust. 

Later, in his room at the Fourth Division intensive care unit, Renji would request a pen and a few sheets of paper. Actually, a blank notebook, if one could be found.

Renji started at the very beginning. Before the blood war, or the winter war. Before even Aizen. Renji wrote it all, exactly as he remembered it. 


End file.
